If you've never heard of it, you're not alone. It is a truly unremarkable place - a fact that the local borough council seems to acknowledge as it's no longer even signposted from the A2.

Like most of the capital's suburbs, it's an ugly sprawl of post-war housing estates, shopping parades and one-way systems. Not only is it devoid of natural beauty, it's also a cultural wasteland. In fact, it hasn't served any useful purpose since the Romans left.

Ifeel no nostalgia for my birthplace. My heart doesn't miss a beat when I return "home" via the gasometers or the refuse tip. Its one redeeming feature is my parents' lovely old house (which, somehow, survived the blitz) with its glorious back garden.

This is where we were on Easter Sunday. We'd had an easy journey up from Brighton as nobody else had been heading for Crayford, and were enjoying one of my dad's barbecues.

Once again, I started on the usual "when are you going to move from here?" conversation, which had sounded more promising of late when my mum began describing how she was going to redecorate their bedroom.

"I've got a renewed enthusiasm," she said, with a glow in her cheeks.

"Oh?" said I.

"Yes, well..." I could tell she had something important to tell me.

"It's this Bluewater place," she said, her eyes alight like the flaming embers my dad was attempting to quell.

"It's only five minutes away and it's beautiful. Even your dad is impressed."

She was referring, of course, to the new shopping complex in the northern tip of Kent which is the biggest and best in Europe (or something like that).

"It's like Oxford Street and Regent Street with all the top-class stores and it's got a boating lake, which is almost ready, and cinemas and restaurants and - oh, it's a pity it's not open today. We could have shown you."

If it had been open it would have been mum's fifth visit in less than two weeks. She seems to have spent all her spare time either drifting wondrously through its gleaming malls, or acting as its unofficial publicity officer.

"After all these years of having nothing around here, suddenly it's starting to look up," she added, brightly.

These were the words I'd been dreading. Sooner or later it'll be followed by the phrase: "Why don't you move back before house prices escalate?"

Ileft Crayford at the age of 19 for a very good reason. I was sure there was more to life than it could offer. But, there is a saying that goes something like: "You can drag a man out of the bog but you can't drag the bog out of a man."

Perhaps this is why on Bank Holiday Monday, with the rain and mist cancelling our intended walk over the Downs, I suggested to my husband that we take a trip to Bluewater. He looked aghast. Wisely, we didn't go.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.